Blossoms on Mount Tabor

I had wanted to do this hike for some time, and the spring blossoms seemed like a great time to do it. All the websites I checked claimed it was a circular 2km hike, suitable for all abilities, starting from the parking lot of the Church of the Transfiguration. I don’t think that is an entirely accurate description of this hike, but more of that later.

We drove up the extremely winding road up to the top of the mountain where the Church is located. Despite it being a Sunday and supposedly closed, the road was swarming with little transit vans, transporting pilgrims from all over the world up to the church, as tour buses cannot make it up there. The road was a little hairy, but slowly and carefully my trusty driver and partner in crime got us up there safe and sound. After walking down the long, tree lined avenue leading to the church (which looks decidedly like Tuscany) we came upon the resident blind church cat, and a large group of Baptist tourists from the US getting the historical background from their guide. All around the building of the church is the most stunning view of the valley stretching for miles. It is really breathtaking and hard to capture in photos.

After looking around the Church, and enjoying the singing of the pilgrims from some Slavic country (Romania?) we walked around and soaked up the view. We then walked back down to the parking lot to start the walk. At the start of the walk there is a black trail sign and I thought that all we had to do was stroll in a leisurely fashion the 2 Km and return to the car, thence off to the Kinneret to eat our sandwiches. And indeed the beginning of the trail was easy, no steep inclines and no taxing climbs. We enjoyed the generous scattering of red anemonies, cylamens and other spring flowers strewn along the way. And as at the church, the surrounding view was just stupendous. Suddenly we got to a wall which seemed to be the wall of the church so we assumed that was where we would lead back to the car park. The marked trail seemed to swing away from the church and down into the valley. So maybe that way was wrong, we thought. Walking along this wall brought us across a field and up to a locked gate. There was nothing for it but to retrace our steps back to the black trail. Once on this trail we encountered a cave with a lot of Canadian pilgrims. We exchanged pleasantries, checked with them that the trail led back to the car park (they had just come from there) and continued along the path.

The path suddenly dipped very steeply downwards and was strewn with tiny stones making it really hard not to slip. The alternative seemed to be to climb on some very large stones piled up up against the church wall, with a 5 foot drop on the other side. The Canadians were helping each other scramble over this wall, and catching their friends as they jumped over the other side. They offered to catch us too. One woman encouraged me and said it was perfectly safe, by saying to me “Do you trust in God?” to which I replied “No, I have osteoporosis”. Abandoning this shortcut we decided it more prudent to trust in our own feet, and extremely slowly but surely made our way down the steep path.On the way we startled a group of browsing cows (or they startled us actually) one of which decided to urinate very copiously. We continued on down. The steep part was actually not that long, and then we came to a fork where the black marking was extremely unclear. Two other paths marked green branched off in two different directions. At this point I tried checking the internet instructions but discovered I had no reception.While debating what to do we encountered a German guy with a sleeping bag on his back. He pointed the way and said that the car park was only about 5 minutes along. The path was marked green and not black, and did indeed bring us out on the road but a few hundred metres from our parking lot, which we located with the aid of Google maps.

Having descended down the very windy road again through the village of Daburiyeh we continued on to the eastern shore of the Galilee, to Zinabberay beach ,where we ate our well earned sandwiches and watched the birds swirling and swooping as the sun set over the hills. So this area of the country is a real treat during the winter, when all the flowers are in bloom and the weather is not sweltering. I highly recommend it, but don’t go jumping over 5 foot walls.

Search

Search